The Tech reports the ban applies even to frats in Cambridge as the Interfraternity Council tries to get Boston to lift what is essentially a ban on all parties at MIT dorms on account of that student falling four stories through a skylight at an illegal roof-deck party. The council kinda needs to try to get the ban lifted by September, when the frats hold their annual rush week.

"It’s the media, man. People put you into these little compartments in their brains and then they think they know you. ‘Oh, ok. A six-foot-two 350-pound humanoid made from military-grade titanium alloy. Probably out to annihilate all of humanity. Better get away from HIM.’

No one’s willing to risk challenging their first impressions, let alone consider that I might prefer not to be referred to using traditional male gender pronouns."

MIT President L. Rafael Reif says he and MIT are standing behind students threatened by New Jersey with legal action if they don't turn over detailed information about a "proof of concept" project involving the online currency Bitcoin.

Officials from MIT and the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity at 487 Comm. Ave. assured the Boston Licensing Board today there'll be no repeat of the September plunge that saw a new pledge fall through a skylight and wind up on the ground with remarkably few injuries.

State Police report that some MIT students were having fun with a 1,000-lb. remote-controlled boat in the Mystic River in Somerville last night. But all good things come to an end and the kids tried using a Ford Ranger to haul the boat out of the water. Instead, State Police say, the boat pulled the pickup into the river. State Police now advise:

If you are trying to pull out a boat from the Mystic River, be sure your truck can handle the pull!

The Tech reports MIT and its fraternities are working with architects to develop applications for assembly permits for frats on this side of the river.

The Boston Inspectional Services Department requires that assembly limits are calculated based on the emergency exit capabilities of each residence. Currently, however, Boston [Fraternity, Sorority and Independent Living Group] residences have assembly limits calculated by the old system that was based on square footage. The Boston Inspectional Services Department wants to verify that all assembly limits meet the present standards and reflect the safe capacities of FSILG residences.

In the 1990s, an MIT team experimented with large tubes with the air sucked out as a potential way to speed trains between here, there and everywhere. Last year, the BBC talked to now retired professor Ernst G. Frankel about the proposed "vactrains," which could cut travel from Boston to New York down to 40 minutes:

MIT wants to be added as a defendant in a journalist's legal effort to gain access to the Secret Service's files on the late Aaron Swartz. The reporter, Wired's Kevin Poulsen, writes MIT wants to block the Secret Service from releasing the names of any MIT staffers who helped the feds investigate and bring charges against Swartz for downloading large numbers of documents via an MIT network.